Saturday 30th July – Saturday 6th August 2022, Barnard Castle School, County Durham
See photo gallery
After postponement owing to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, our Jubilee NORVIS at our new home at Barnard Castle School was a triumph, enjoyed by all. What a pleasure it was to all be in one area for our social time (the spacious 6th Form Centre) and no more to have to climb the hill between Caedmon and Hild as in the past nearly 50 years in Durham! The school chapel proved to have a very comfortable acoustic for our concerts and the surrounding verdant playing fields, beautiful countryside and pleasant market town of Barnard Castle – in a week of mostly very good weather – added to the calm of our new setting.
Musical choice, learning, performance and opportunities to listen abound at NORVIS. The main performances started with a fascinating and varied illustration of musical recycling based around Josquin and contemporaries. On Monday, we decamped to the glorious (and adjacent) Bowes Museum for a wonderfully curated concert based on specific art works in the museum. A prelude to this was a reception with Prosecco and NORVIS anniversary cake, cut by Françoise, participant in NORVIS I (1971). Tuesday and Thursday saw fine student and tutor concerts in the chapel. Wednesday’s evening offering was a ceilidh with a difference – Elizabeth Dodd and a live NORVIS band leading historic dancing – pavans and almains. Friday’s concert was the culmination of NORVIS Baroque, the orchestra directed by Michael Williamson, NORVIS Choir directed by NORVIS musical director Andrew Fowler and, in a new development, NORVIS Recorder Ensemble directed by Peter Wendland, whom we welcomed back to NORVIS. The finale was Kuhnau’s (300 anniversary) cantata Gott, sei mir gnädig nach deiner Güte .
As one concert a day is nowhere near enough, the usual programme of informal lunchtime proms resumed, along with three later-evening epilogues: the first in memory of long-standing late recorder tutor, Alan Davis, the second themed on NORVIS past and future and the final one an epilogue for world peace.
Mornings were filled with the tuition sessions in recorder, viol consort, lute, Baroque strings, consort singing and harpsichord, followed by the second session of ensemble and chamber music. The afternoon of Choir, orchestra, recorder ensemble or just doing your own thing was a prelude to a plentiful Choice of Delights.
Also plentiful was the food served up in the spacious dining room – and mention must be made of the extremely friendly and helpful school domestic staff. The coffee and tea arrangements and the honesty bar all made for a relaxed and sociable environment. Friday night’s post-concert social included the NORVIS raffle and some thank-yous to those who had helped to make NORVIS happen this year.
We were delighted to welcome back Jacks, Pipes and Hammers sheet music shop, the Early Music Shop and Rondo Publishing, as well as NORVIS friends and viol-makers, Richard and Vivien Jones.
Thank you to Andrew, Elizabeth and our wonderful tutor team for a week of marvellous music. Thank you to everyone who participated in NORVIS – from the UK but also Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, Lithuania and Australia. We now look forward to NORVIS 51, starting 29th July 2023.
NORVIS - Early Music Summer School 